AMERICAN ANTHEM has it all. Awesome 1980's pop songs, insane over the top lighting, montages galore, sincere acting to a horrible script, multiple spreadies to the gods and spreadies to the underworld, an unemployed drunk and abusive dad, an angry guy who doesn't need a wheelchair getting into an electric wheelchair and slamming himself into a wall face first, random fog in the background, a dude walking into his own house and casually throwing his motorcycle helmet into something offscreen that makes a crashing sound, dude doing angry gymnastic in a darkened forest at night during a rainstorm, cracking eggs with your front teeth and then sucking out the insides, wielding without a mask on, the lines "colon caterpillar" and "how far can u squirt?" never used even once, a motorcycle chase, people flying through the air, an athlete with a knee made of Play-Doh and a heart made of gold, cassette tapes, Mitch Gaylord with his shirt off, the coach from ROCKY IV (with his shirt on), lots of sporty gymnasts tumbling and springing all over the joint doing tricks that probably have names like the Flip Six Three Hole, Wookalar Nards and Cookie Dough Dick.
Who knows what watching this film was like back in 1986 (and apparently not too many people do since it tanked at the box office), but watching it nowadays (5/2022) I had a blast! Quick pace, solid acting, no real ups or down, lots of fun songs for me to change the lyrics to. AMERICAN ANTHEM is a great stress-free, lazy afternoon guilty pleasure to giggle at and secretly enjoy. Recommended. I watched it twice and I'm totally going to watch it again. My only real complaint is the camera seemed too zoomed in for the entire movie.
[This has absolutely nothing to do with the review but, true story, I fell asleep last night thinking about this movie and had a dream that during the nighttime forest gymnastics scene the gymnast flew up into the clouds and 69'd a pelican before safely falling back to earth.]
